Young's Special London Ale

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I have been falling behind with my postings of late. Yesterday's reference to pizza was in fact the night BEFORE last and my adventures with the smoothie were actually three days ago. Last night, Norma made a curry which seemed like a good time to review my next British Beer.

The label on the Young's London Ale bottle says that it is "matured live in the bottle for a fresher taste". As labels go it has lots to say, really - even tasting notes like a respectable table wine might: "... a smooth rich malty ale with notes of candied fruit on the palate and a powerful spicy hop finish". It also makes reference to the cloudy deposit at the bottom of the bottle and provides recommendations for upright storage and gentle pouring.

Further it specifies that the brew should be consumed at between 10-12 degrees Celsius. Now that is very helpful I think. References to "room temperature" could mean almost anything - depending where one lives of course. In any event, as the ambient temperature (according to my wall thermometer was about 20 degrees) I did what I suspect I should ALWAYS do with nominally "warm beer" .... I put it in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

I set up my tabletop studio, camera on tripod, cable release in place etc. I then poured the beer and shot it (I suppose about 2 minutes later). The shoot took about 8 minutes in all and I then sat down for the specific purpose of tasting the brew. I found the ale to be a whisker below MY room temperature and very believably at 10-12 degrees.

Of course at my age, half of the taste buds I ever had in my palate have taken a redundancy package and long gone into retirement but the remaining stalwarts worked hard to indeed report all of the delightful sensations described on the attractive blue and gold label. For Ausralian beer fanciers I found it to be very similar in style to Coopers Pale Ale and indeed not far away from Cooper's Sparkling Ale albeit a fraction lighter in colour and consistency. Very nice indeed. I think it's sufficiently different from my current British favourite (i.e. Old Peculiar) for me to be unwilling to directly compare them but this is an ale I could cheerfully drink again at any time.

I had the second half of the bottle with the curry but I have to say that my preference is for a chilled beer with such food. Incidentally you will notice the streaks in the picture. Given the one second exposure time here, they are light traces formed by bubbles rising to the beer head.